eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Rapid and specific degradation of endogenous proteins in mouse models using auxin-inducible degrons

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Lewis Macdonald
   2. Gillian C Taylor
   3. Jennifer Margaret Brisbane
   4. Ersi Christodoulou
   5. Lucy Scott
   6. Alex von Kriegsheim
   7. Janet Rossant
   8. Bin Gu
   9. Andrew J Wood

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript will be of interest to the broad class of biologists and especially mouse geneticists who study the function of protein-coding genes. The authors confirm the utility of the auxin-inducible degron tool to rapidly degrade the target protein of interest by developing genetically modified mouse models. This expands the set of tools to study gene function in a cell/tissue type, in adults (bypassing embryonic lethality) and also to more finely dissect the different functions of pleiotropic genes.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

2. BK channel properties correlate with neurobehavioral severity in three KCNMA1-linked channelopathy mouse models

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Su Mi Park
   2. Cooper E Roache
   3. Philip H Iffland
   4. Hans J Moldenhauer
   5. Katia K Matychak
   6. Amber E Plante
   7. Abby G Lieberman
   8. Peter B Crino
   9. Andrea Meredith

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study is of broad interest to neuroscientists interested in membrane excitability and translational biologists and physicians eager for robust animal models for disorders involving mutations in the KCNMA gene, such as paroxysmal nonkinesigenic dyskinesia PNKD3. Here, phenotypes of mouse models of three of the more common patient disease-related mutations in KCNMA are evaluated for similarities to patient phenotypes. This work establishes that BK channel mutations linked to human neurological disease can, on their own, cause similar pathology in mice, and it also begins to provide neurological bases for the associated behavioral deficits. Importantly, one of the mutant alleles expressed in mice most closely phenocopies the patient phenotype and will serve as an important animal model for studies seeking therapeutic treatments for the resulting debilitating disease moving forward.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Fitness effects of CRISPR endonucleases in Drosophila melanogaster populations

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Anna M Langmüller
   2. Jackson Champer
   3. Sandra Lapinska
   4. Lin Xie
   5. Matthew Metzloff
   6. Samuel E Champer
   7. Jingxian Liu
   8. Yineng Xu
   9. Jie Du
   10. Andrew G Clark
   11. Philipp W Messer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The issue of general fitness effects in organisms expressing Cas9 enzymes as part of gene drive genetic control strategies is important, particularly in the emerging field of vector control. This manuscript reports experiments aimed at teasing apart such effects in a Drosophila model system, providing evidence that off-target effects predominate, which may be ameliorated by utilising high-fidelity nucleases, but a more detailed analysis of data and justification for some of the assumptions, especially some direct evidence of off-target cleavage, are still needed to support the authors' inferences. It is currently also not entirely clear how the lines were generated and tested. Finally, additional modelling to include scenarios where the initial frequency of the drive allele is very low (as would be the case for an actual release) would help to strengthen the conclusions.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

4. SNTA1 Gene Rescues Ion Channel Function in Cardiomyocytes Derived from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Reprogrammed from Muscular Dystrophy Patients with Arrhythmias

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Eric N Jimenez-Vazquez
   2. Michael Arad
   3. Álvaro Macías
   4. Maria Linarejos Vera-Pedrosa
   5. Francisco M. Cruz-Uréndez
   6. Ashley J Cuttitta
   7. André Monteiro Da Rocha
   8. Todd J Herron
   9. Daniela Ponce-Balbuena
   10. Guadalupe Guerrero-Serna
   11. Ofer Binah
   12. Daniel E Michele
   13. José Jalife

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper bears on cardiac pro-arrhythmic findings reported on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. iPSC-CMs reprogrammed from cardiomyopathic DMD patients showed a dysfunctional NaV1.5-Kir2.1 channelosome relatable to reduced cardiac excitability and conduction. These findings suggests a possible clinical rescue of this phenotype by introducing the scaffolding protein α1-syntrophin.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Host chitinase 3-like-1 is a universal therapeutic target for SARS-CoV-2 viral variants in COVID-19

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Suchitra Kamle
   2. Bing Ma
   3. Chang Min Lee
   4. Gail Schor
   5. Yang Zhou
   6. Chun Geun Lee
   7. Jack A Elias

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The observation that CHI3L1 has the potential to modulate SARS-CoV-2 variants is timely and of potentially great significance. This is a novel approach to treatment and if sufficient additional data can be provided regarding in vivo efficacy this would be of great interest.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript.The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

6. Regulation of presynaptic Ca2+ channel abundance at active zones through a balance of delivery and turnover

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Karen L Cunningham
   2. Chad W Sauvola
   3. Sara Tavana
   4. J Troy Littleton

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors undertake a detailed investigation focused on how the abundance of the sole Cav2 Ca2+ channel Cac in Drosophila is regulated at active zones (AZs) using the larval neuromuscular junction (NMJ) as a model system. The larval NMJ is a particularly powerful system to address this question, and the authors have taken full advantage of the unique approaches available. This work makes important advances in our understanding of AZ Ca2+ channel regulation during development and will be of significant interest to the field.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Nomograms of human hippocampal volume shifted by polygenic scores

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Mohammed Janahi
   2. Leon Aksman
   3. Jonathan M Schott
   4. Younes Mokrab
   5. Andre Altmann
   6. On behalf of for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript considers whether genetic information can improve the clinical utility of population norms derived from brain imaging data. The authors propose to incorporate polygenic scores into normative models of hippocampal volume to improve predictions of neurodegenerative disease. This approach is elegantly demonstrated in this manuscript and may be useful for clinical translation of population neuroimaging.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Temporal coordination between chromosome mobility and homologous recombination

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Fraulin Joseph
   2. So Jung Lee
   3. Eric Edward Bryant
   4. Robert J. D. Reid
   5. Ivana Sunjevaric
   6. Rodney Rothstein

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Damaged chromatin displays an increase in nuclear mobility, but the importance of this response in homologous recombination (HR) repair is under debate. This study shows tight temporal coordination between HR repair events in budding yeast, where the increase in the mobility of repair sites follows resection and precedes chromosome pairing and gene conversion. With several elegant assays, the authors demonstrate that this temporal correlation remains intact in conditions that either delay resection or promote resection. This is consistent with the role of increased mobility in promoting chromosome pairing and HR progression, downstream from resection.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Injury-induced pulmonary tuft cells are heterogenous, arise independent of key Type 2 cytokines, and are dispensable for dysplastic repair

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Justinn Barr
   2. Maria Elena Gentile
   3. Sunyoung Lee
   4. Maya E Kotas
   5. Maria Fernanda de Mello Costa
   6. Nicolas P Holcomb
   7. Abigail Jaquish
   8. Gargi Palashikar
   9. Marcella Soewignjo
   10. Margaret McDaniel
   11. Ichiro Matsumoto
   12. Robert Margolskee
   13. Jakob Von Moltke
   14. Noam A Cohen
   15. Xin Sun
   16. Andrew E Vaughan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this paper, the authors study distal tuft cells that are induced by influenza and bleomycinthe and find that Tuft cells originate from p63+ distal cells in virally-induced dysplastic regions of the lung as evidenced by lineage tracing. Interestingly, single cell sequencing reveals heterogeneity of tuft cells reminiscence of the murine tracheal tuft cells and supports a p63+ cell origin. They also found that the tuft cell induction is independent of the IL-25 and IL-4Ra pathway and since type 2 inflammation has been associated with tuft cell induction in the intestine, this suggests a different biology for the distal pulmonary tuft cells, although the inflammation-associated biology of the corresponding tracheal tuft cells has not been established. Somewhat surprisingly, tuft cell deficient mice do not develop abnormalities of alveolar regeneration following influenza and similarly, mucous metaplasia, which is associated with type 2 inflammation, was unchanged in the tuft cell deficient mice. Although the major findings of the study are negative, it provides important new information on these enigmatic cells.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors. This manuscript was co-submitted with: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.11.483948v1)

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Parallel processing, hierarchical transformations, and sensorimotor associations along the ‘where’ pathway

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Raymond Doudlah
    2. Ting-Yu Chang
    3. Lowell W Thompson
    4. Byounghoon Kim
    5. Adhira Sunkara
    6. Ari Rosenberg

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This study compares the roles of two interconnected dorsal pathway visual cortical areas, CIP and V3A, during perceptual decisions based on judging the tilt of 3D visual patterns. The potential impact of the paper stems from the novelty of directly comparing these two interconnected brain areas in perceptual decisions, and gives insight into their relative roles.

      (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

    Reviewed by eLife